Some reasons for ASB's mores

by Steven S. Davis

7/20/95

Some people have objected to "mindlessly" observing ASB's customs. So I think it might be well if we occasionally state some of the reasons for the few restrictions included in ASB's mores. Here's my take on why these mores exist, and why, IMO, they are good things.

Personals are unwanted because there is a perfectly good group expressly for personals, and people interested in personals will be reading that group, therefore when one posts a personal to ASB one is trying to show personals to people who do not want to see personals (if they did, they'd be reading alt.personals.*). Now, there are all kinds of posts to ASB that some people don't want to read, but a) sometimes people can learn valuable things from posts on subject they didn't think interested them, while few people will ever learn anything from a personal, and b) there are so many personals that their clutter of the group would become a major nuisance if they were unchecked.

This is why personals should be posted to alt.personals.bondage

Advertisements, even on topic ones, are inherently offensive to many posters. Many people who don't find them inherently offensive find it deeply offensive to have to pay for the time to download them. And if unchecked, advertisements could fill up the group and make it extremely hard to find the substantive posts people hope to locate. However, a substantive post with commercial content is acceptable.

This is why such articles that are primarily commercial - when at all on-topic - are more welcome on such groups as: alt.sex.erotica.marketplace, alt.sex.wanted, alt.sex.telephone, alt.bbs.ads, or alt.sex.magazines

Binaries, because they are usually massive, are costly to people who download their news. More importantly, their memory usage presents problems for many sysadmins, who cannot afford to carry binaries groups, and if ASB carried a lot of binaries, could not afford to carry ASB. Or who, even if they could, might use that as an excuse to dump a group that they don't like, or that brings them criticism. It's unfortunate that a lot of users don't have access to binaries groups, but neither they nor the other users at their sites will be better off if they lose access to ASB as well.

This is why binaries should go to an an appropriate alt.binaries.* group, such as a.b.pictures.erotica.bondage (or a.b.sounds.* for .wav files).

Your Kink Is Not OK / One true way

There are a great many different practices among ASB's readers, and in many cases these practices are both extremely meaningful to the people who do them, and quite squickful to many others. Since almost anything posted will offend someone, and if those offended post critically of it, that will be deeply offensive to all the people who follow such practices, if we did not make YKINOKism an unpardonable offense, the group would be totally filled with bitter debates about the relative merits of each others kinks.

And, of course, some people feel it's just simple courtesy to extend to other pervs the same tolerance we want for ourselves.

One True Wayism is seen by many as a variety of YKINOKism, and therefore alway discouraged. I personally have never found it so, figuring that since I have found the OTW, I can be indulgent of the errors of others ;-> However, because many people will respond to another's proclamation of the perfection of hir kink by feeling that their kink has been disparaged, and react accordingly, OTWism is also contrary to our common interest in ASB being a group filled with people trading experiences and information instead of insults and recriminations, OTWism is strongly discouraged.

Nonconsensuality

If anyone needs it explained why it is both correct, and in our interest, that a person's right to chose how sie will live should be honored, and that therefore we should not tolerate real life, genuine nonconsent, I don't know how to begin to explain it to them, their values are so different from mine. I'll have to suffice with saying that ASB is a group nor people who share an interest in consensual explorations of pleasure and/or pain and/or power, and that those who do not consider consent - in any one of many modes - an essential element in anything they would actually do are not welcome on ASB.